Riverbed Theatre (Taiwan)

Riverbed Theatre, The Weight of Things (2021), video, 13:30. Commissioned by Sydney Opera House and C-LAB, Taiwan with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan. Courtesy the artists. (Craig Quintero, Lynn Yeh, Kuan-Yu Chen, John Rommereim, Carl Johnson)

Imagined as a Surrealist dreamscape, Riverbed Theatre’s The Weight of Things transports audiences into the world of suspended belief through a series of striking scenes. Threaded together with a dramatic score, evocative cinematography and suggestive narrative, The Weight of Things stirs deep contemplation and reflection about our current moment. The film includes the same cinematic images with two different musical scores. In this Rashomon-inspired experiment, we are reminded that “the truth” is always clouded by our own perspective, that a twice-told tale will never be the same.

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Craig Quintero is the Artistic Director of Riverbed Theatre. Riverbed Theatre was founded in 1998 in Taipei, Taiwan. The company’s image-based, Total Theatre productions blur the boundaries between visual and performing arts. Critics have praised the organic, sculptural quality of Riverbed’s “subconscious” theatre, likening the performances to the best works of Samuel Beckett and David Lynch.
Riverbed has staged over fifty original productions, including works at the Taiwan National Theatre, Asia Culture Center (Korea), Esplanade Studio Theatre (Singapore), Theatre de la Condition de Soies (France), Imaginale Figurentheater Festival (Germany), Kobe Arts Village Center (Japan), BOK Festival (China), and Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center (USA). Riverbed has also participated in exhibitions at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan National Museum of Art, Kaohsiung Museum of Art, Taipei MOCA, and Shanghai MOCA. Riverbed has received grants from the Hong Foundation, Quanta Arts Foundation, and Puffin Foundation and was selected as one of the Taiwan Top Performing Arts Groups by the National Culture and Arts Foundation. Their upcoming collaboration with The Formosa Circus Art Company will premiere in 2023 at the Taiwan National Theatre.